


The Promises We Make

by aewgliriel



Series: The Light That's Leading Me [4]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Marriage, Pregnancy, Romance, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-09-27 20:28:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 42
Words: 10,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10047419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aewgliriel/pseuds/aewgliriel
Summary: 50 drabbles/shorts of Jyn and Cassian before, during, and after Rogue One, through "Still Looking Up" and the space before the next as-yet-untitled in the series.





	1. Threat

**Author's Note:**

> I started this to challenge myself to write at least a drabble a day during my recovery from surgery. We'll see how it goes.

Just days before, her cell mate told her that she would kill her. It wasn't the first time she'd heard those words. In fact, she'd been told she was going to die enough time times that it's rather lost its effect by now. The blaster the man in white holds aimed at her chest only induces a small frisson of fear. Jyn wonders if she can get to the transmitter before he shoots her.

Then he drops at her feet. Cassian stands there, beautiful and bloody, blaster aimed at the man on the ground.

She smiles. She'd thought Cassian might be the worst threat to her. But he's not. He's a promise.


	2. Empire

He kicks his feet up on the console, elevating his injured leg the best he can. In the copilot seat, curled with her cheek leaned against the headrest, Jyn snores softly.

He'd begun to lose himself until her, losing sight of what he was fighting for. The Empire had seemed so vast and powerful and even though he's been fighting nearly his entire life, he’ started thinking they wouldn't win.

But he's seen her fire, and it's rekindled his. Cassian watches her sleep, face cast in the blue light of hyperspace, and he thinks, “I hope you've enjoyed your control, Palpatine. Because we're coming for you. Was it worth it?”

For him, it is. She will always be worth it.


	3. Falter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These really have no coherent order. They're just snippets of memory and stuff.

She's not precisely a hesitant woman, especially when it comes to Cassian. She's had a history of running, but when she commits to something, Jyn sees it through.

Stepping through the doors, in her pearl-grey gown, seeing Cassian waiting for her with Torean and the justice that will marry them, she pauses, her breath catching.

It's only for a moment, and only she knows.

But in that moment, she feels her parents there, imagines her father telling her to keep going.

The rest of her walk to him is steady, confident. Maybe it's her imagination that Galen is there to walk her down the aisle, but she doesn't falter again.


	4. Compliment

“You're beautiful,” he tells her, and she flushes, smiling and ducking her head. Cassian can tell she's a little irritated by the reaction.

“You're not used to compliments,” he states, as he cups her cheek.

“I've never really received real ones,” she confesses. “My parents, of course, and sometimes Saw, but… Most people just want something.”

He leans his forehead against hers. “All I want is you.”


	5. Glass

They walk along the sandy shore of a river not far from the base. Jyn kicks at the bits of metal on the ground from the Death Star. A fire started from the debris, and then it rained actual water and put out the flames before it threatened the base.

Cassian stoops to pick up a strange thing sticking out of the ground. It looks like lightning and shines through the gritty surface. “What is this?” he asks aloud.

“Oh! That's a fulgurite!” Jyn takes it from his, turning it over in her hands. “It's glass, made from when lightning hits sand or other soil types that are heavy in silicates. My mother was a geologist, Papa played with mineralogy amongst other things. I think that's how they met. She told me about these. I've always wanted to see one.”

Cassian takes it, brushing the sand off the glass as best he can. It seems to be hollow, the glass a strange mixture of white, brown, and clear where different particulates got caught in the melted glass before it cooled. “I didn't know that happened.”

“They're valued highly in some places but I wouldn't think this one would fetch much. It's a bit ugly. You want to keep it?”

He shakes his head, tosses it aside. It doesn't break, which he finds surprising. “Makes you think,” he muses aloud.

“About what?”

“How a flash of electricity could transform something so mundane into something like that.”

She takes his hand, green eyes bright. It's clear she knows he's thinking of the Rebellion, not the fulgurite. “Yeah.”


	6. Honour

There's little honour in being a spy and an assassin, Cassian thinks, as he crouches beside Bodhi Rook on the dark outcropping of rock that only a very magnanimous person could call a ledge. He's a man who does what he's told. Others keep their honour; his is long gone.

But he looks through the scope, sees Jyn Erso’s eyes in her father’s face, and finds himself unable to squeeze down.

Until this moment, he's been prepared to pull the trigger, to run, to… What, exactly? He pulls the trigger and one of them won't leave this Force-forsaken rock. Either Jyn kills him, or he kills her or leaves her here, and he needs to get back to the Rebellion.

The man he might have been once, before the killing started, won't let him ditch her here. And the thought of killing her is a ball of ice in his gut.

Cassian sets the rifle aside, breathing fast and heavy.

Maybe, he wonders later, he isn't without honour after all. He tells himself it's that, anyway. For a while.


	7. Work

Jyn isn't a stranger to work. She had chores and jobs to do with Saw. Work had to be done on her own, too, if she wanted to eat. And then there was Wobani.

But watching Cassian tug on his pants, knowing she has to get up and go do something productive to justify her continued presence in the Rebellion, seems cruel this morning. All she wants is to watch him walk around their bedroom in the nude, maybe drag him back under the covers.

He tosses her shirt at her and it hits her in the face.

“Hey,” she grouses.

“That's what you get for staring.”

“I was hoping for a little more than that,” she admits.

Cassian snorts, shoots her a look over his shoulder as he grabs his own shirt. “You're insatiable, woman.”

“And you're a workaholic.” She sighs as she sits up, the covers dropping away.

His eyes go even darker as they fix on her bare breasts. “Oh, so now you're interested,” she laughs.

Cassian glances at his wrist chrono as he moves back to the bed. “I suppose I could take a few minutes… My meeting with Draven isn't for an hour.”

She reaches out, grabs his waistband, and yanks him back to bed.


	8. Jealous

She hasn't been with the Rebellion long, only three months now. Two of those have been as Cassian's wife. It seems like she's known him longer, the way they work so well together. It hits her sometimes that she barely knows him, that he's been here his whole life.

One of the other Intelligence agents has returned from a long operation. It's clear that the woman knows Cassian well, from the body language. Jyn can't hear what they're saying, but the woman leans closer, arms folded but still in Cassian's personal space, white-blonde hair shimmering in the light.

Jyn glares at the rifle she's been cleaning as a hot, sick feeling wells up. It's wholly unfamiliar and makes her want to throw up. Jealousy, she realises, and scolds herself for it. She has no reason to be jealous. Of course he knows people.

But that looks like _knowing._ Cassian is the only man she's had a relationship with. He's the only one she's ever trusted with her heart. Jyn knows it's ridiculous to hope she's his only like that; he's older, more experienced.

But still.

He glances over, sees her glaring. Jyn ducks her head but it's too late. Her excuses himself from the conversation and comes over.

Jyn hates that his mere presence is enough to loosen the grip of the monster in her gut, as much as she loves it.

“You alright?” Cassian asks.

“Fine,” she says shortly.

He glances back towards the unknown woman, and his mouth curls up wryly. “Come here.”

Without waiting for a reply, he takes the blaster rifle from her and sets it aside, pulling her to her feet. Jyn follows wordlessly as he tugs her into the open supply closet, backs her against the shelf, and kisses her until she's breathless.

“You have no need to be jealous,” he murmurs, as his hands skim her sides. “I have no interest in Winter. She's just a friend.”

“I'm not jealous,” she protests in a whisper.

“You are. I can read you, Jyn.” His fingers slide up into her hair and he nips at her bottom lip. “Mrs Andor.”

Her fingers curl into the front of his shirt. “It's stupid. I'm sorry. It's just… You're all I have.”

Cassian sighs, nuzzles against her. “You have all of me, love. I promised, remember?”

“Yeah,” she whispers. “I'm not used to having something to lose.”

“You won't lose me. I'm with you all the way.”


	9. Strings

In cleaning the detritus left behind fifteen years ago, Jyn finds a ball of yarn she vaguely remembers playing with when she was a child. It's made of plastic fibres, nothing natural, so it hasn't decayed over time. It's a tangled mess, though, and she sits for a while on the floor, picking the loops and knots with her fingers as she watches Cassian and his brother install new glow rods into the overhead lighting track.

Her mother had done something with the yarn once, with a metal tool. Made fabrics, a scarf, a toy. Jyn has faint memories of Lyra trying to teach her, but she’d had no patience at eight for it. She'd preferred stringing it between rocks and trees, obstacle courses for Stormy to navigate.

She doesn't know why she's doing this. She has no use for it now, doesn't know the craft her mother tried to teach her, and the blue and purple colours are pretty impractical for anything around the house. But still…

“Have either of you seen a metal hook around here?” Jyn asks. “About, oh, fifteen centimetres long?”

Cassian pauses, standing on one of the chairs with his arms over his head, a strip of his abdomen exposed by his shirt hiking up. Jyn finds it rather distracting. “No,” he says. “Why?”

She shrugs. “Just wondering.”

She sets the yarn aside, now untangled and wound into a ball, and dusts her hands off as she stands. “How can I help?”


	10. Semantics

Saw’s people call themselves the Partisans. The first three years she's with him, they're based on his homeworld of Onderon, at least until the Empire tracks them down and turns their hideout into a steaming crater from orbit.

They're rebels, partisans, extremists. Jyn doesn't pay much attention in the beginning, never draws much distinction between what Saw does and what the “Alliance To Restore The Republic” does even when she has the time to think about it. It's all just words, labels.

She's good at what she does. Her parents were smart, her father a veritable genius. She's got an analytical mind but it's all in the precision of a shot, knowing where to hit someone to bring them down fastest, finding weak spots in armour and exploiting them. Jyn burns with rage at the Empire for killing her mother and stealing her father, just as she burns with rage at those same mother and father for leaving her.

Galen Erso left her with Saw to create weapons for the Empire. Perhaps it's only appropriate that Saw turns Galen’s child into one to fight him.


	11. Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "Warmth" prompt at @rebelcaptainprompts on Tumblr.

It's cold on Lah’mu. There's a perpetual humidity, mornings foggy, a drizzle that lasts all day. Any time outside results in a layer of damp that can quickly turn clothes sodden. And it's never what Jyn would call warm, even in what dubiously passes as “summer”. It's winter now. Even though they're near the water, everything is covered in snow. It's not a thick snow, but it's heavy and wet, sticking to everything. Jyn hates it.

She comes in from checking the vaporators, the two they've managed to get working, and finds Cassian waiting for her with a sweater and a blanket. She shrugs out of her coat and he wraps her in warm layers.

“We don't have a place for a fire,” he says. “But I can make you some caf.”

“I love you,” she says fervently.

She kicks off her boots and crawls up on their bed, tucking her feet under her. He brings her a mug of dark, slightly sweet caf made from instant stuff. It's all they can get, and they're lucky to have it. She wraps chilled fingers around the heated ceramic and sighs.

“Both units are working fine,” she tells him. “We should think about refurbishing a third. I don't think they'll let us buy new ones.”

He joins her on the bed, looping his arms around her. There's something so comforting about his touch. She's never trusted anyone else with casual contact like this, but Cassian is different.

“Why are you home?” she asks. “I thought you were talking to Draven about a new assignment.”

“I did. We'll discuss it later. They want us to have a few more days after that mess on Marclonus.”

“We actually get to rest?” She laughs. “It's a miracle.”

He chuckles. “We do. Just two days, though.”

She stretches to put her mug on the nightstand and settles back into his arms. He kisses the side of her head, and a warm, fuzzy feeling wells up. They've been married half a year now, but it still feels new.

“I wish we had a fireplace,” he tells her softly. “I would love to lay you down by one and make love to you.”

She shivers at the timbre of his voice. “Yeah?”

“Mmm. I'd kiss every inch of you by firelight.”

Jyn's breath catches and she shifts to press her mouth to the spot just under the corner of his jaw. “You could still do that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

She catches his hand, brings it to her breast. He rolls the nipple through her sweater and she gasps. “Cassian.”

He twists, bearing her to the mattress, mouth hot on hers. With his hands on her skin, she very quickly forgets the cold.


	12. Innocence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sad one(s) today, sorry.

Jyn loses her mental innocence at the age of eight, when her mother is murdered.

She loses her virginity at sixteen, desperate and alone and hungry, when she runs out of credits. The guy she's talked into exchanging work for food says he'll throw in a hundred creds if she keeps him warm for the night.

She's cold, and the credits will keep her in food for a while. Her physical innocence does her no favours.

Later, far away with money tucked safe, she cries silently for it and all the half-remembered dreams she's lost along the way. She's still young, despite the hard years with Saw, and part of her had hoped for more.

She doesn't think she'll get it. Dreams are only worth what you're willing to pay for them, and Jyn's in a deficit.


	13. Dispose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll try to keep the depressing ones to a minimum.

He's ten the first time he kills a stormtrooper.

His foster family has abandoned the Separatist-leanings they'd espoused so long. Given the state of things, there's no purpose to it. Instead, they join a resistance cell on Bellassa for a while, before moving on. It's there he first meets Shara Bey, a year older but seemingly infinitely wiser. He has an instant crush on her. Torean, at twelve, likes a local boy named Trever and has no time for girls.

Cassian is an excellent shot with a blaster. He likes using it to shoot targets, though he knows that one day, he might have to kill a living being.

That day comes sooner than he'd like. Stormtroopers attack a few local facilities. Cassian is showing off his skills for the older kids when one of them discovers them there. He's about to radio in.

Cassian knows that of the four of them, three have families actively involved with the resistance here on Bellassa. If they're dragged in by the stormtrooper, everything could fall apart.

Before the thought even finishes, he's pulled the trigger. The trooper drops without a sound to the forest floor.

Torean grabs the blaster and says, “Run.”


	14. Blaze

The spark hits when she grins at him, grabs his arm, then looks flustered.

The flames grow in the turbolift, her face just inches from his.

It isn't until they're on the shuttle, safely in hyperspace, that it bursts into a conflagration. Cassian hurts more than he can recall in his entire life, but with their survival, with Jyn pressed against him, the need that's consumed him these last days shifts.

His mouth crashes down on hers, and she moans into his mouth. He's hard so fast that he has to sit, drag her into his lap as she seems to try to devour him through the kiss. He's never needed anything as badly as he needs her right then, broken bones and blaster burns be damned.

He yanks her shirt out of her pants. Her nimble fingers find the buckle of his belt.

Jyn hesitates, biting her lip, as she meets his gaze. He nods wordlessly. She shifts just enough to get his pants halfway down his thighs, and then her hands are on him.

He'll pay for this later. But at least he's alive to do it. Right now, he's happy to burn.


	15. Neglect

Saw does the best he can. Jyn knows, even at eight, that this wasn't the plan. Her mama wasn't supposed to die. The man in white wasn't supposed to take her papa. This gruff, strange man wasn't supposed to become her guardian.

His base isn't designed for children. His people are too rough and hard, and Jyn cries in secret for weeks for what she's lost.

The clothes Saw finds her don't fit right. The bland rations aren't enough for a growing child. She's sick for two weeks after he rescues her, burning with a fever and crying deliriously for her parents. Saw doesn't intend to be mean when they lose her toys. It just happens.

It's a benign sort of neglect. He doesn't have the time to give her the reassurance she needs, the patience or temperament to treat her like the child she is. Instead, he tells her war stories and gives her a blaster. There are no other children here. There's no hide and seek, no tag, no pillow forts. There's tracking lessons, hand to hand training.

She loses the baby fat and gains the skill to stab a man by her ninth lifeday. She lives hand-to-mouth, with the others, learns to pick pockets.

Her parents would be appalled. But her parents aren't here.

She stops wishing for her mother in the first month.

She never stops missing her father, no matter what she tells herself.


	16. Quake

They're lying in bed, Jyn with her head pillowed on his chest, when the house vibrates a little. Cassian sits up, dislodging his wife, and reaches for his blaster.

“‘S just a little groundquake,” she mutters, replacing him with his pillow hugged to her chest. “Happens all the time.”

He glances her way, only able to see a sliver of her face in the moonlight through the window. Both of Lah'mu’s moons are up and close to full.

“Groundquake?” he repeats, not finding this particularly reassuring.

Jyn yawns. “Lots of volcanic activity on this planet. Don't worry, we're not near enough to any of the faults or the active volcanos. This area is an extinct volcano, by millions of years. That's why the soil is black and full of nitrates.”

“How do you know this?” Cassian finally puts the blaster back and retrieves his pillow. She protests sleepily and he hauls her into his arms.

“My mother was a geologist. She told me all about it.” She cuddles close and drops her head down on his chest once more. “The sensors you repaired will warn us if there's a quake bad enough to affect us. And the house is built to withstand the worst of one. Of course, if a volcano suddenly erupted, we'd be kriffed. But my parents surveyed carefully before settling here.”

“I'll take your word for it,” he sighs.

“Should probably warn the council when they get here, though. So that the prissy Minister Jebel doesn't have a heart attack.”

Cassian snorts. “Probably.”


	17. Guess

“Do you have a preference?”

“Not really. Do you?”

“Mmm. No.” Cassian splays his hand over the small bump of her stomach. His dark eyes are fixed there like he's waiting for visible movement, though Jyn isn't that far along yet.

She threads her fingers through his hair. She loves the softness of it. It's really unfair. “I'll take either,” she says. “As long as it's healthy.”

Her husband nods, leans over to kiss the swell of her abdomen. “I… can see a girl with your eyes,” he says. “Maybe my hair. As long as she doesn't get my nose.”

She laughs softly. “I’d love a little miniature of you,” Jyn admits. “Though I don't think I'd ever be able to tell him ‘no’.”

“A mini me would take full advantage of that,” he tells her with a grin, a sight that's becoming more familiar. Cassian always used to frown, rarely smiled. Now he laughs more. She knows it's because of her, because of this.

“I love you,” she whispers.

The lines of his face soften, dark eyes warming. “I love you,” he replies.

She motions to him. “Come here.”

Cassian moves up the bed, leans over her with one arm. “What?”

Jyn levers up on her elbows to kiss him. He makes her feel safer, calms her anxieties. But when his mouth is on hers, her heart races.

Without a word, he presses her into the bedding, and all pondering of their unborn child is abandoned.


	18. Quarrel

“No! I'm not staying here!”

He sighs as he drops his bag at the foot of the boarding ramp. “Jyn. We've gone over this. It isn't safe.”

“Because I'm a woman.”

“Yes! I told you, they keep their women as slaves. I don't want to risk you.”

Her chin juts out. “I can handle myself.”

Cassian nods. “I know you can, love. I'm not worried about that.”

Jyn's green eyes narrow. “Then why? We work best together.”

“We do,” he agrees. “But this mission… Yes, I'm worried that you would get snatched and sold. But that isn't my main worry.”

“Then what is, Cassian? That I wouldn't be able to be obedient enough and blow your cover?”

His lips twitch just at the thought of her trying to act the part of a female servant. “Some. You'd get impatient with it and I wouldn't want to make you do it.”

He puts his hands on her shoulders. She tries to resist for a moment, then lets him. “I'm worried about what it would do to you, seeing this place. We're not going to save anyone. Not yet. I know you, Jyn. You'd want to save everyone, and we _can’t_. I don't want to go myself. I don't want to subject you to that.”

Her petulant expression softens, uncertainty creeping in. Sometimes, she seems so damned young. He forgets she's only twenty-three now. He's four years older but he feels so old some days.

“Is it really that bad?” she asks. She grips the front of his jacket then. “How can _you_ go? I know you're not the type to ignore suffering.”

“I'm going because I'm the one the contact asked for. And I hate the place. It's really that bad.”

She sighs, steps close to wrap her arms tightly around him. “Okay. I'll stay here. Be careful. And come back to me.”

He hugs her close. “Always.”


	19. Brood

“You're wallowing again.”

A mug of caf appears in front of his face, where he sits in the cockpit of the _Stormrunner_ , staring out at hyperspace. They're on their way back to Lah'mu. Back home.

He looks up as he takes it, at Jyn with her hair tailed at the nape of her neck instead of her typical bun, wearing one of his shirts untucked over pajama pants. She smiles and lowers herself gingerly into the copilot seat, clearly still stiff from the blow to her side courtesy of a couple thugs on the last mission.

“Not wallowing,” he insists.

She snorts and draws her knees up. Her feet are covered in thick socks. She used to wear horribly threadbare ones, he reflects, but now hoards a collection of thick, sturdy socks to pad her feet. He wonders briefly what she's endured to make _that_ her vice.

“You are,” she insists. “You get broody after you have to kill someone. I've seen it before.”

He smirks at his own words tossed back at him. That was her intent, of course. They know each other too well, even after just five months. Has it only been five months since they met? And most of that married. He doesn't regret that, no matter how much Torean had insisted he would.

“You had to shoot him,” she continues, ignoring his lack of reply. “He was going to turn us in.”

He knows she's right. But still. “I'm tired of the killing, Jyn.”

Her green eyes soften and she reaches over to run her fingers through his hair. “I know. I don't like it, either.”

Cassian takes a swallow of the caf and sighs. “I see their faces. The ones I killed that didn't deserve it. I remember all of them.”

“At least you care. The Empire doesn't. You think any one of them lies awake at night, tallying the dead of Jedha, Scarif, Alderaan? The Emperor is evil enough that he probably gets off on it, all the death he's caused.”

He knows she's right. He scrubs a hand over his face. “You should go back to bed.”

“Without you? Pass.” She glances at the on-dash chrono, counting down their time remaining in hyperspace. “Four more hours and we'll be home. I can sleep then.”

He catches her hand, interlocks their fingers. Jyn leans her head against the headrest.

They watch hyperspace go by in silence.


	20. Effort

Draven isn't thrilled with Jyn joining Intelligence, but he isn't about to contradict Mon Mothma. And he can't argue that Jyn didn't get them the plans. He's also not pleased that she and Cassian got married on Dressel, making his chances of freezing her out even less likely. Cassian tells her that the General is secretly impressed that she faced off, unarmed, against Krennic to get the plans transmitted, but she isn't sure if he's just saying that to counter the dark looks the older man keeps sending her way.

Still, Draven puts her through quite the trial to officially join after the Alliance arrives on Lah’mu. She spends days having her fighting skills tested. Her blaster aim, her hand to hand, everything. Then he tests her other skills, such as slicing. The look he gives her when she cracks one of their more advanced encryptions is one she can't decipher. It could be grudging respect or calculating if she's still a threat. But she passes.

She's never had as much structure as she does with the Alliance. It goes against her general nature, but she does what she can to fit in. Cassian is her commanding officer, which is normally against the rules, but being who they are has its advantages.

It doesn't mean she doesn't still dislike Draven. But she can tolerate him if it means he'll let her stay with Cassian.


	21. Classic

She and Cassian celebrate her becoming a “real spy” with a bottle of whiskey he dug up somewhere, sitting on a blanket on the low, gently rounded roof of their house, staring up at the rings in the sky. It isn't raining for once, though it's still humid.

“He doesn't like me.”

“He doesn't like anyone.”

“He likes you.”

“I'm useful. Don't worry, he'll come around. He knows you have skills. He just doesn't trust anyone easily.”

Jyn snorts, turns her head to look at him in the dim light. Only one of the moons is up; the other should rise within the hour. “That's an enormous understatement, sweetheart.”

Cassian rolls to his side, props up on an elbow. “I like that.”

“Like what?”

“You calling me ‘sweetheart’. It's unexpected. But nice.”

She snickers. “Better than some other things I've called you.”

He laughs. Yes, she'd called him a few things after Eadu, raging by herself in the engine compartment of the shuttle. He'd heard. Everyone had heard.

“I know it's generic, but… My father used to call my mother something. I can't for the life of me remember what it was. He called me Stardust, she called me ‘sweetie’.”

He reaches over, brushes a few strands of hair off her cheek, runs his fingertips down to her jaw. A swell of affection for her steals his breath for a moment. He'd been drowning and hadn't really known it until she'd come crashing into his life, saving him even as she turned everything he'd known on its head.

“I don't remember anything my parents called each other, other than ‘love’,” he tells her. “I do remember that they loved each other, loved us, but it's hazy.”

She rolls to her side to face him, places her hand on his chest. Her touch is warm through his shirt.

“You call me that,” she says.

“It's … what you are to me.”

Jyn shifts closer, pressing their noses together. “I love you. I'm not good with words sometimes. I can't tell you just how much you mean to me. But I love you.”

Cassian closes his eyes and sighs. “It is the same for me, love.”

He pulls her close, her head on his shoulder, and they go back to looking at the stars.


	22. Haze

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had this one sitting in my head since I first started writing "Feel You Fakling", but didn't put it down into words until now.

Everything is fuzzy when Cassian regains consciousness. His eyes take too long to focus, the staggering amount of pain he's in clouding everything. Breathing hurts.

A metal grate presses into his cheek, the square holes the first thing he can see clearly. He doesn't know how long it takes before he recalls where he is. Scarif. The data tower.

He hisses out a breath as he tries to push up on his arms, and immediately collapses. His shoulder feels like it's dislocated and then popped back into place improperly. His right leg is on fire. Every inhale feels like knives. The skin where the blaster bolt grazed him stings horribly.

He rolls to his back, looks up a dizzying height to the top of the data tower. There's a blinking light at the top. On. Off. On. Off.

No. Not a light. An air vent. He doesn't think it's supposed to be doing that, opening and closing.

He doesn't see Jyn, or the man in white. Krennic. The bastard who shot him. He judges that he's fallen about thirty, thirty-five feet from where he was. The air vent looks a lot farther away.

Cassian sits up, looks through the grate and forces away the dizziness that threatens to engulf him. He doesn't see Jyn down there, on the power generator. Just the death trooper he'd shot. So she climbed, then. That's a relief. The thought of her dying while he lay unconscious turns his stomach as much as the pain does, and he nearly retches.

Slowly, limbs shaking, Cassian pushes to his knees. He grabs onto the tower for support, using the handles of the data cartridges to keep from toppling over, falling over the side and even farther down.

The room swims. He breathes past the pain. In. Out. In. Out.

With a groan, he drags himself up to a standing position. His leg protests and he almost blacks out.

 _Don't think of the pain_ , he tells himself. _Jyn. You need to get to Jyn. Make sure the transmission gets out._

Cassian looks up the tower, at the distant light. It feels like the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

He sees his blaster on the grating when he looks down to check footholds. Fetching it hurts, but not as bad as standing up did. Not as bad as the climb will.

Jyn. He needs Jyn.

He secures the blaster in his thigh holster with unsteady hands. Wipes his sweaty palms on the ugly pants of the Imperial uniform. Grabs the handles sticking out of the data tower.

Then Cassian takes a deep breath, thinks, “I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.”

And he starts climbing.


	23. Solve

Cassian quietly tells Draven that he won't do any “special” assignments anymore. (Jyn's pretending to be doing data analysis but is really eavesdropping.) He's happy to recruit, or do other work for Acquisitions, but he won't assassinate anyone for the Rebellion again. Eliminating a threat as part of something else is different. He won't do anything specifically targeted to ending a life.

She admires her husband's quiet strength. She still hates Draven, but is also somewhat afraid of him. Standing up to the general takes guts.

Scarif changed Cassian. Draven finally understands how close his best agent is to burnout. He needs a constant touchstone, and that is Jyn. It's shifted Cassian's focus, but Draven apparently realised that he either needs to let Cassian do this or he'll lose him completely.

Draven doesn't always make the best choices, but he isn't stupid.

“Fine,” the general says at last. “Take your team to the Kanz sector, maybe the surrounding areas. Do some recruiting. But make sure you hit Bimmiel.”

“Yes, sir.”


	24. Soon

Jyn strips out of her prison jumpsuit and into the only clothes she owns. She's not sure why they let her keep the clothes, instead of making everyone wear the jumpsuits all day, every day, but she's grateful. The jacket and vest are marginally warmer than the jumpsuit, and the hidden pocket in the lining let her smuggle her necklace into prison.

Sitting on the prisoner transport out to the work site, Jyn looks down at the heavy stun cuffs on her wrists. They're almost too big for her slender wrists and small hands, but she makes no effort to free herself. There's no point. She has no way off this rock, nowhere to go even if she managed to find a ship.

Nail will probably try to kill her today. Jyn it ponders if she should try to fight back, or let the alien do her in.

She feels something in the air, like a change of weather. It's the middle of winter, though that isn't saying much for Wobani. It snows but briefly, just a dusting. Enough to make it cold but not deadly so. Still, Jyn almost feels like the air is charged, the calm before the storm, waiting for the thunder to start.

Nail isn't paying her the slightest attention when Jyn looks her way. Maybe the threat was idle.

Then the transport shudders to a stop. And somewhere, deep in her subconscious, Jyn feels the crack of lightning.


	25. Listen

He isn't sure when her voice becomes his anchor point. Sometime between Jedha, marching with a burlap bag on his head, and Scarif, Jyn's voice is the thing that guides him. He listens for it on Jedha, to know she's alright. He rallies around it on Yavin. On Scarif, it leads him to her at the top of the tower.

Now, listening to her joke with Torean in the kitchen as his brother tries to teach her his favourite dish--he's pretending he can't hear, here in the bedroom with his datapad and a number of intelligence briefs to go over--he finds himself at peace for once. It doesn't matter that he can't hear her exact words. Just the murmur of it is enough. She's alright. She's here.

The smoke alarm goes off and Jyn yelps in dismay, the sound punctuated by Tor’s laugh. Cassian finally gets up, to help open the windows and let the smoke out.

Jyn gives him a sheepish look. “I burned it. It was going to be a surprise.”

He smiles and wraps his arms around her. “It's the thought that counts, Jyn.”

She snorts. “Next time, I _think_ I'll leave the cooking to you.”


	26. Verbal

Jyn is the Force-sensitive one, not that she really knows what that means yet, but Cassian is the one she seems to be able to communicate telepathically with. Not Luke, the Jedi. Ever since that battle on Jedha, in the marketplace, they've been in sync. They work so well together, it's like they've had a decade of practise. She's only known him a year. She forgets that sometimes, because it's like they don't even need to talk.

Like now, over dinner in the mess because their house still smells of smoke.

“You're doing it again,” Torean says.

“Doing what?” Cassian asks his brother.

“That talking with your eyes thing. It's unnerving.”

Jyn leans her elbows on the table and grins. “We could talk aloud, if you want.”

“That would be preferable,” Torean grouses.

Looking to her husband, she says, “So I was thinking, if they have any of that chocolate syrup left in the kitchen, maybe I could steal some and bring it home. You'd probably need to find a plastic sheet for the bed, though, I don't know what it would do to the covers-”

“STOP!” Torean exclaims, face red. “Go back to the silent married talking, for the love of the Force!”

Cassian snickers, though he's a little red himself.

Jyn smirks, cuts her eyes towards the kitchen. She holds up her chocolate-covered fork and deliberately licks it. Cassian turns redder, but nods.

Grinning broadly, she stands and goes for the kitchen.


	27. Fragment

Her life has been nothing but pieces since her mother died. Jyn knows Cassian feels the same about his own upbringing. It would have been easier, she thinks sometimes, if she'd never known the love of her parents; the loss of them would have hurt far less.

She'd told Cassian that they were both broken, their edges fitting together. She still meant it, though she feels less broken and battered now, lying beside him in the dark, listening to his even breathing as he sleeps.

A dream woke her, but it's fuzzy and fading, unimportant. She rolls to face him, even if it's dark and she can't make out his features. Jyn rests a hand on his chest, palm flat and fingers splayed, his skin warm under hers.

Once, she'd thought she would never be safe. Sleeping with her hand on her blaster, waking at every sound. But here, it's the closest thing to secure she's ever known. It's not the memory of the family she lost here; that time was relatively peaceful but only because she was young. She hadn't had a full understanding of her parents’ paranoia.

Cassian reaches for her in his sleep and she lets him pull her close, tucking her head under his chin, nose against his neck. Here, she actually does feel safe, and it's strange as much as it is perfect. She's old enough now, trained enough, she can protect herself. But she's not alone.

Torean’s presence in the house is still unusual, and running into him makes her jump. Cassian just fits, like he's always been there. It goes against all of Saw’s training to let him in, but she doesn't care. He's glued the bits of her back into a whole.

Jyn sighs, lets the drowsiness take her, and dreams of more pleasant things until morning.


	28. Strange

Cassian leans back in the pilot seat of the Imperial shuttle, closing his eyes against the swirl of hyperspace. He has his leg up on the copilot seat, since Jyn is asleep on the bench in the back. It hurts, is probably fractured, but it's not an obvious break. His ribs actually hurt worse, as does his shoulder. At the moment, it's his head bothering him.

He should get up and take another pain pill, but he also doesn't want to put weight on his leg. And Jyn needs sleep. They're taking it in turns. She's hurt, too, but won't admit it.

He's never met a more stubborn woman in his life, and that includes Leia Organa. He's had to revise his opinion of Jyn several times in the past days. He thought her cowardly, sullen, selfish. His initial thought that she's reckless hasn't changed, but sometimes, a little recklessness is necessary.

She's not cowardly or selfish. She was just gunshy, skittish after so many betrayals. Knowing her story now, he doesn't blame her in the slightest. In fact, he's damned impressed that she didn't run for wild space at the first chance. And the sullen attitude was nothing but armour to hide the fear.

He glances over the seat back to see that she's still sleeping. The starboard bench isn't comfortable, but it's better than the port one. That one is in two sections and the divider between makes lying on it impossible. The floor is preferable to that one. He should know. They were sprawled on it just hours ago.

Cassian smiles at the memory, skin prickling with the recollection of her above him. Sex wasn't a great idea, injured as they are, but they'd survived impossible odds and that had led to heightened emotions. It was natural that they'd come together like that, wasn't it?

He closes his eyes again, leaning into the seat with his arms wrapped around his injured ribs. Jyn had torn her vest to make a bandage for them. It's odd, but it works.

Like them, he thinks suddenly. They make a strange pair, but they work. He's never had that kind of thing where he and his partner don't need to speak, they just _know_. And those moments in the turbolift…

He'd come to Scarif as a sort of repentance, seeking absolution for his crimes. Instead, he'd found salvation.

Cassian has never been religious in any way, and thinking about it now is a little itchy. He doesn't know if he believes in the Force. But something beyond him got him up that tower, got them off that planet before the Death Star fired. Whether it was the Force or just a pair of green eyes he can't forget, he'll take it.

 


	29. Old

“I don't know. Probably Coruscant. If not there, then either Jedha or Yavin.”

Kaytoo rolls in as Jyn and Cassian lie together on the new sofa, her in his arms.

“What are we discussing?” he asks.

Jyn looks his way, though Cassian stays with his eyes closed, head back. Kay's given up making disparaging remarks about Jyn, partly because she's carrying his best friend’s child and partly because she gave him a blaster on Scarif. There's still a teasing dynamic, but it's different. Joking rather than snide.

“We're talking about the oldest places we've been. Ones that have been there the longest.”

Kay's optical sensor rotates for a second. “Given that the planets of this galaxy are billions of years old, it is ridiculous to try to order them chronologically.”

Cassian snorts, eyes still closed. “Civilisations, Kay. Not the rocks they're on. Coruscant is probably the oldest continuously occupied one, but as for oldest _buildings_ …”

“I see. Jedha’s holy city had been in existence approximately twenty-four thousand, five hundred years. The structures on Yavin date to only approximately four thousand years. It is impossible to know how old the oldest buildings on Coruscant are, as they are all at surface level.”

Jyn smiles. “Thanks, Kay. That's actually very interesting to know.”

He wheels closer. “I felt it prudent to download all available data before we went to Jedha. I do the same for all destinations we travel to.”

Cassian slits an eye. “You've never told me that.”

“You've never asked.”

Chuckling, Jyn says, “My father studied a lot of things. He was a scientist, an architect, a mineralogist. My mother was a geologist. For a while, when I was seven or eight, I couldn't decide if I wanted to be a treasure seeker or an archaeologist.”

“Same thing to some,” her husband puts in.

She shifts to look at him. “What did you want to be, when you were young?”

He's quiet for a long stretch. Finally, Cassian says, “I wanted to be a teacher, like my father. Or a pilot. Starfighter pilot.”

“Why did you join Intelligence?” Jyn asks.

“Because I was better at it.”

“Okay,” she says, and leaves it at that.


	30. Quiet

Her hand pets his arm in her sleep, reminding him of Scarif as she led him to the turbolift. He'd forgotten that, until now. It's funny how easily touch came to them, two loners who were largely strangers to physical affection.

The only sound in their cabin is their breathing. The hum of the hyperdrive is more of a vibration than anything audible.

Cassian tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and leans down to kiss her temple. She's exhausted, none of them have slept for two days. It was a hard mission. But they're on their way home.

He should sleep. But he needs a little while, to just be and reassure himself that she's alright. He knows she sometimes does the same.

She rolls over, reaching for him in sleep. Cassian gathers her close, fingers curling into her shirt as he presses his face into her hair.

Holding her, he's decided, is his favourite thing in the galaxy.


	31. Jagged

Sometimes, Cassian feels his skin is made of glass. Sharp, broken glass coating his body and keeping everyone away.

Except for his brother, everyone he's cared for has died. His parents. His foster parents. His first and only girlfriend.

He's twenty-three now and hasn't let anyone close like that since he was sixteen.

He doesn't need the attachment, he tells himself. Anyone who touches him gets hurt.

That's why he finds himself awake in the early hours, before the sun rises and the temperature on this moon gets to unbearable levels, tinkering with the coding on the droid that sits in the corner of his tiny quarters, processor hooked up to a borrowed portable computer unit, stripping out the Imperial programming.

It's subconscious. He tells himself that it's because they need to know if it can be done and if it will be of any use to them. He wants to know if he can do it. He needs something to do with his hands since being grounded while he recovers from a shot to the thigh.

But really, he's doing it because flesh and blood dies. Metal people don't. And Cassian is lonely. His edges are sharp, his nerves brittle.

He finishes--he hopes--and reinserts the processor into the droid’s chest, the last part of the puzzle he's been working for weeks on.

Then he holds his breath, hits the power switch.

And he waits.


	32. Ashes

The weather on Lah'mu is damp. Jyn likes it, for the most part. It isn't hot like Yavin, or like Scarif--her thoughts skitter away from brilliantly blue skies and white sand stained red--but it isn't cold like Wobani was, not as miserably wet as Eadu.

The moisture in the air is what saved the house when Krennic’s Death Troopers tried to torch it. Some of the walls are scorched, blackened, but mold and general decay have done more to the house than anything.

One of the sheds didn't fare as well. Her father’s workshop is in about the same condition as the house. Anything actually valuable was in the bunker.

They have the front door open and what lamps they could find on the ship to light the interior, while Torean fiddles with the generator. Some of the lights in the circular track of the main room are broken. Until they get power restored, they won't be able to figure out what needs replacing.

They don't have a lot of money for repairs, but Cassian is trying so hard to make this seem doable, Jyn can't fault him for it.

There's a fine layer of black and grey grime over everything. Some of it's ash, some mildew. Jyn runs her finger through the coating on a kitchen counter and shudders.

The tray her mother had been preparing with lunch on it still sits there, on the counter, one corner crookedly overhanging the edge. The blue milk has long-since dried to a black and green crust inside. Jyn thinks the shrivelled lumps might have been sandwiches at one point.

Behind her, Cassian says, “This couch will need to go. Something has been living in it.”

“This will take a lot of work,” she sighs.

His brown eyes meet hers. “I know. We will manage. Even if we have to go to Cloud City and con a few rich idiots to get the money, we'll make this a home.”

She hopes so. She's seen too many dreams turn to ash and dust and she's tired of running. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”


	33. Leave

“What do you mean, we've got leave?” Jyn blinks at Cassian in no small amount of confusion. “Leave to do what?”

He gestures to the door. “Leave. To go somewhere that is not here, for the purpose of relaxing.”

“They actually let us do that? Saw never let us do that.”

Cassian snorts. “No offence, Jyn, but from everything I've seen and have heard, Saw Gerrera was insane.”

She can't really argue that one. “Okay, but… Where would we go?”

“Anywhere. Well. Anywhere not occupied by the Empire. What do you want to see?”

She has to think about it. She's spent so long running, she's seen a lot of planets, but hasn't had a chance to actually enjoy any of them. Technically, they had a honeymoon on Dressel, but that had been part of a mission, too.

She runs her hand over the small bump of her stomach. “Can we just… go back to Dressel? I know our anniversary isn't for a few months, but we don't know how things will be then.”

He smiles and steps close, dropping a kiss on her forehead. “We can do that. And maybe, when we get back, Cilghal will clear you for duty again and we can start going back out to see the galaxy.”

“And blow up Imperial bases.”

He grins. “That, too.”


	34. Fit

“Cassian?”

“Hmm?”

“My pants don't fit.”

He glances over from pulling his boots on. “Try a different pair.”

She throws the pants on the bed. “This _is_ the ‘different pair’. I only _have_ two pair. I'm getting fat!”

Cassian freezes. He's heard horror stories about this. He's always told himself that if it were him, he wouldn't say whatever stupid thing the man lamenting to him said.

But in the moment, his brain shorts out.

“Cassian!” Jyn wails, grabs the pants, and throws them at his head.

He just barely manages to catch them before they hit him in the face. “You're not fat,” he tells her, finally finding his voice. He rises and moves around the corner of the bed, to where she stands in a shirt and panties. He places his hand on the small bump of her stomach.

“You're not fat. I won't lie and say you won't get that way. That's what happens.”

She pouts and thumps his chest, but without anything behind it.

“But I will love you and want you no matter what,” he tells her. “Even when you can't get out of bed without me or can't see your feet.”

Jyn snorts, but the tears that had been threatening shift into a smile. “That doesn't solve my problem of not having pants.”

“We'll go raid the donation bin again,” he says. “But for the moment…”

He fetches his spare pair of fatigues. She eyes him balefully.

“What?”

“This isn't what I meant that time I said I couldn't wait to get in your pants.”

Cassian laughs. “Just put them on.”

She does, cinching the waist with a belt and rolling the cuffs up five or six times so she isn't walking on what would be the calves on him. It looks ridiculous but his life isn't worth any comment that comes to mind.

“Okay,” she sighs. “But I think we need to--ugh--go shopping for maternity clothes.”

“We'll do that soon. Let's find you something to wear in the meantime.”


	35. Elusive

He has to find a way in to talk to Saw Gerrera without getting anyone's head blown off, so that he can then find Galen Erso. He's had stranger assignments, but not by much.

Cassian starts by looking into Saw. He knows enough to know the man is an extremist and teetering on the edge of insane. Draven doesn't like him, and neither does Mothma. It takes a lot to get on the pacifistic Chandrilan’s bad side, so that says a lot about Saw.

Finding Saw isn't the problem. He's on Jedha. Getting in…

He needs to know why Erso sent the message to Saw. So, look into Erso.

There's not much. Born on Grange, worked at the Brentaal Futures Corp. Married Lyra Erso of Aria Prime. Cassian finds a funeral notice for her on Coruscant dated thirteen, almost fourteen years before.

A little more digging uncovers the existence of one Jyn Erso, daughter of Galen and Lyra. But there's scarcely anything on her. Just a handful of mentions, three or four in all.

Curiously, almost feeling like he's scratching a mental itch, he cross-checks everything they have on Saw for mentions of one Jyn Erso. He eventually finds it, a throwaway mention from someone the Alliance occasionally worked with, saying he'd run something with Saw’s Partisans and had thought highly of one in particular, a twelve-year-old girl named Jyn Erso, Saw’s adopted daughter.

So. Jyn Erso had been with Saw Gerrera. She isn't now. So where is she, and how can Cassian convince her to help them?


	36. Painstaking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to being very ill off and on the past ten or so days, and working on an unrelated RebelCaptain thing, I've gotten a bit behind on writing these. I'll try to keep up the one-a-day thing I've been doing, but no promises.

The first thing Jyn learns about Cassian Andor is that he’s kind of a control freak. She doesn't intentionally mess with him, but it's obvious from the way that his right eye sometimes twitches that he's finding the gaggle of people he's collected on Jedha testing his limits. Even if he's with Intelligence--which says “spy” without actually saying it--he's used to having his orders followed.

It amuses her a little too much that no one listens if they don't have to.

Later, much later, Jyn watches as Cassian carefully, meticulously, rewires the control panel in the kitchen of their home on Lah'mu: stripping out corroded wires, replacing with newer, checking the power readings with every step.

She knows now that his unconscious desire for order stems from his childhood. She thrives a bit on chaos. He'll deal with it but he prefers when things go as planned.

He treats everything this way. Cassian can roll with the punches, but likes plans. He's focused in a way she's never managed. But they work well together. She brings him out of his shell, he tempers her wilder impulses.

And his intense focus certainly makes other things very enjoyable.

He glances over, sees her watching him. “What?”

“Nothing. Just watching what you're doing. I've always been much better at taking things apart than putting them back together.”

He smirks and uses his multitool to strip a bit of coating off the new wire so he can fix it in place. “I've always been good with my hands.”

She grins. “I've noticed.”

To Jyn's delight, he flushes. She stands from where she was leaning on the counter and takes the few steps over to him.

“You know… Tor’s over where the new base is going. You could work on this later.”

He drops the multitool.

She didn't intentionally fluster him when they first met, but she sure enjoys doing it now.


	37. Remove

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the nasty gastroenteritis is gone, AND I'm off the (Imperial) walker and back to my cane, which my brother helpfully named Cane-2SO.

“Lie down.”

Her movements are quick as she uses the vibroblade to slice open the remains of his shirt. Jyn's mouth is tight with anger and worry, though Cassian knows the wound isn't as bad as some he's had.

“Hey,” he says. “I'm okay.”

“No,” she says shortly. “You're not.”

He takes a second look and his vision goes a little white as he realises there's a chunk of shrapnel in his side. He'd thought he'd been grazed by the blaster bolt. How had this happened? “Oh.”

“Lie down!” his wife repeats.

Cassian does as told, lying on the floor of the safe house. This was supposed to be a routine surveillance mission, but they'd wound up in the middle of an uprising that had nothing to do with their people. “Think… I could… recruit the insurgents?” he asks.

Jyn snorts. “Maybe. If you don't bleed to death first.”

Despite her tone, she's gentle as she probes the edges of the wound. “I don't think it's deep,” she tells him. “But we don't have much bacta and I don't have anything to cauterise it with, so I'm going to have to stitch it.”

He grimaces. “Knock me out first. There should be a sedative in the emergency medkit.”

She nods. There is, along with bacta gel, emergency bandages, and wound sealant. “Oh, this is hard to get,” she coos. “I'm still going to have to stitch you up, but a little of this inside should help.”

Cassian is in too much pain to do more than grunt vaguely. Now that he knows the splinter of metal is in his side, it's all he can think about.

She holds the syringe of sedative to the side of his neck. “I love you,” she tells him.

“Are you says that because you're about to torture me or because you're afraid I'll die?” he asks, trying for joking but missing by a parsec.

Jyn's green eyes narrow. “Both, you nerf.”

He smiles wanly. “I trust you,” he says.

She takes a deep breath and depresses the syringe.

Cassian breathes in, out, in.

Everything goes blissfully dark.


	38. Measure

Cassian is out for over six hours after Jyn removes the shrapnel from his side. It was bloody work, but she got it out and managed to get him patched up.

She sits beside him, where she left him on the floor, wishing they hadn't left Torean on base for this mission. If he were here, she could move Cassian to the bed. She's not strong enough to do it herself.

Jyn turns the chunk of metal over in her hands. It's about two centimetres by six, big enough to have caused serious damage if it had penetrated deeper. But a ragged edge had caught on Cassian's lowest rib, halting its progress after only a third of its overall length.

“You,” she murmurs to her unconscious husband, “are the luckiest bastard in the galaxy.”

The rioting is still going on outside. They can't leave yet. Jyn doesn't know how long they're going to be stuck here on Marclonus, but she has a feeling it will be a while.


	39. Wrap

There's a dull throb in his side when he wakes, and all of his muscles are stiff from hours spent on the floor. Cassian isn't sure how many, but he knows it's more than a few.

He groans, and something warm and soft touches his cheek.

“Welcome back,” Jyn says. “You've been out nearly seven hours. I'm sorry about the accommodations but you're really heavy.”

He blinks his eyes open, finds she has the lights low, which he appreciates. “Sorry?”

She smiles. “Can you get up yet? I think you'd do better on the bed.”

Together, they manage to get him moved off the floor, but he's sweating by the time he collapses on the mattress.

“I'll get you something for the pain,” she says softly.

He nods weakly, just lies where he landed until she comes back with a couple pills and a cup of water. As he swallows them, she says, “It wasn't in very deep. I got you stitched up and you don't have any signs of infection. But it's still chaos out there and they've locked down the spaceport. We can't leave yet, anyway, so you should rest.”

Cassian hands the cup back. “Okay.”

She fetches the blanket she'd covered him with earlier and brings it back to the bed. “I can sleep on the sofa, if you need the room.”

He shakes his head. “Need you. Please.”

Jyn crawls into bed beside him, covering them both with the blanket. “Go back to sleep,” she whispers. “Rest. We're safe for now.”


	40. Morning

Jyn’s never been much of a morning person. Cassian is. She doesn't know if that's natural or just years of being in the military. She grudgingly got up in the morning at the unnatural times Saw insisted on when she was younger, but since he'd left her to fend for herself, she'd found she preferred being able to sleep in.

Effectively being on medical leave due to her morning sickness means Jyn can sleep in, but it's more out of necessity than anything else. She's more tired than she can recall in her life, and throwing up at random intervals is not what she'd call fun.

But lying here, earlier than she'd normally be up, is kind of nice at the moment. Cassian is fully awake, even if she isn't, and he's talking to her bump. Jyn doesn't know if he's aware she's awake; he's sometimes self-conscious about talking to the baby if he knows she's listening. A lot of the time, he speaks in Festian. She's making headway in learning the language, largely out of self-preservation. Her child is going to be bilingual, along with his or her bilingual father and uncle, and if she doesn't catch up, the boys will definitely use it against her.

Cassian rests his ear against her belly, as if listening, and Jyn reaches to run her fingers through his hair.

He didn't startle, which tells her he knew.

“Your hair is so soft, it should be a crime,” she tells him.

Her husband chuckles and lifts his head, turning the other way so he can look at her. “Good morning.”

She smiles. “Hi.”

“How do imitation egg product omelettes sound for breakfast?”

Jyn makes a face. “As long as you don't mix the protein powder in again. The baby didn't like that last time.”

He laughs again. “Okay. No protein powder.”

He starts to get up, and she pulls him back.

“Hey. C’mere.”

Cassian leans in, knowing what she wants, and presses his mouth to hers. She sighs happily against his lips.

“I'll bring you some tea,” he says, and he draws back.

Jyn burrows back into her pillow as he goes. Mornings, she thinks, could be a lot worse.


	41. Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one takes place right after Jyn's told Cassian that she's pregnant and he's in turn told his brother. If anyone's wondering.

“You're more social now,” his brother says, as Cassian is making dinner.

“Am I?”

Torean nods. “Before, Kaytoo was your only friend. I don't count, I'm your brother. Everyone else was an acquaintance to you. But you are talking to people now.”

Cassian isn't sure how to respond to that. Yes, he'd been a loner. He hadn't thought he could have friends with the work he did. They were a liability, a distraction, something to be used against him.

Then he'd met Jyn, and Bodhi and Baze and Chirrut, and he'd realised how lonely his world was.

He still has Jyn. He misses the others more than he'd thought he would, for how short a time he'd known them.

“I realised, on Scarif,” he says slowly, “in the turbolift, that there was every chance I was going to die. And the only one who would miss me was you.”

“Jyn would miss you.”

He narrows his eyes at his older brother. “Jyn would probably die with me.”

“Oh, right. I think Draven would miss you. He scares me, but he likes you.” Torean shakes his head. “But I mean, you have actual friends now. Kes and Shara, Luke, even the princess. Not sure I'd call Solo your friend. He's more Jyn's.”

Cassian sighs. “I had others. I think they would have been, anyway.”

“The crew,” his brother says quietly. “Jyn talks about them sometimes.”

Nodding, Cassian turns the stove off and moves dinner off the heat. “They were… interesting people. But I miss Kay most.”

Tor snorts. “You would.”

“He was my best friend,” Cassian says defensively.

“And that says more about you than you know. Your best friends have been an incredibly sarcastic droid and a tiny woman who can dismantle a tank with a vibroblade and a stick.”

It's hyperbolic, but not by a whole lot.

“Yeah,” he agrees at last. “You're probably right.”


	42. Seasons

The seasons on Lah'mu are technically defined as spring, summer, autumn, and winter. In reality, they are “rainy”, “warmish and rainy”, “cold and rainy”, and “cold and rainy and occasionally snowy”. Jyn teases Cassian about his constant wearing of his many jackets.

“I don't like the cold,” he complains.

“You were born on an ice planet!”

“But I didn't grow up there!” He pulls the furry hood of his coat closer around his face as they work together to clear snow off the roof’s solar panels. It's not bright enough to get them much power, but it helps the old generator behind the house.

He hops down from the low roof and helps her down. Jyn stands on her toes and grabs the fur trimmed hood to pull his head down. She kisses him, says, “If you're cold, I know how to warm you up.”

Cassian's hands fist at the waist of her own coat, and he says, “Show me.”


End file.
